Leah Rogers' tragic final texts to sister before death after thinking she had tonsilitis
07.09.2023 - 13:11
/ dailyrecord.co.uk
The devastated siblings of a teenager who died after returning home from holiday with what she thought was tonsillitis have revealed the final texts she sent. Leah Rogers fell ill shortly after returning to the UK from a holiday with friends in Spain with tonsillitis-like symptoms.
The 17-year-old regularly came down with the throat infection but she and her family had no idea that this time she only had days left to live. Her family were warned not to Google her condition, HLH (haemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis) after she was diagnosed.
Leah's sister Becky, 33, was due to go with her to Majorca but dropped out after sadly suffering a miscarriage, meaning Leah went with friends instead, reports the Mirror.
Becky said: "I've still got messages on my phone where she's at the airport texting me 'I'm sad you're not here, wish you were here'. She sent me a message saying 'there'll be plenty of other times', which just breaks me to read now.
"I'm so glad she still went and had a ball. Really that was just a few days after she returned that she became unwell with the tonsillitis."
Leah's brother Ben, 25, said: "It's been recently, the last three weeks or so, that I've been able to look at Leah's texts. I was talking to her in the hospital. I was asking her what was going on, what they were saying, what she was doing.
"Although she wasn't up to a lot. How she was keeping herself busy. And from her to be replying normally to what happened in the end was... I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy."
The condition is so rare that three doctors treating Leah at Bridgend had never come across it. Leah was put in intensive care and Becky and Ben were raced up from Wales by a family friend to join their parents, Hugh and Kath, both 57,